The anecdote was recounted by writer Pierre Adrian and journalist Philibert Humm in the afterword to their photo book Rades (Bars, Hoëbeke collection, Gallimard, 2023). Even slightly embellished, it's the kind of story that's made to be repeated. One day, at the Bar des PTT in Lourdes, Monique, the alehouse's owner for 40 years, saw Guillaume Blot, a young photographer who didn't take any photos that day, take a seat at her counter. They talked for a good hour, and as night fell, this somewhat unusual customer asked if he could sleep in. The owner supposedly replied, "Don't forget to slam the door shut when you leave." That's the only time Blot unrolled his sleeping bag and laid down on the floor between the deserted seats and with the unmistakable smell of old watering holes. Even this summer, when he worked on a series on roadside eateries, he slept in his truck in the parking lots.

In 2015, the then-26-year-old Nantes native got into documentary photography with a first series called "Buvettes" (refreshment stall). At the time, he was working as a columnist for the Fooding Guide and found that there was a lack of reviews of refreshment stalls. So he set off on a tour of the country's stadium French fry vendors, mainly soccer arenas. Photos, texts, a lot of miles... this first project kept him busy for four years. In 2019, now an assiduous café-goer, he realized how much he loved the everyday scenes that unfolded in these establishments and the unlikely stories of the people he met. He began a series of photographs entitled "Rades" ("Bars"). "My idea was to document the France of bistros, in the light of the declining number of cafés in the country. I don't have any post-Covid figures, but in 60 years, we've gone from 200,000 IV [alcohol selling license] licenses to around 40,000. It will be very interesting to see how things evolve in the years to come, if only from a photographic standpoint."

A cat lazing around, dogs on a leash, a parrot, scratch-off tickets, a glass of white wine at the counter, more or less funny jokes, pints, a quickly-emptied cup of coffee, eyes staring into the distance, laughter, cigarettes, local people, transient people, very old people who don't look their age, young people who do... What makes a "rade" a "rade"? "Its authenticity," replied Blot. "And it can only come from the soul of the owners and regulars. It takes time. Not just any bar can be a 'rade.' Having a vintage decor or a Ricard carafe isn't enough."

A small ritual

"Rades" are also a genre in and of themselves, one that writers, filmmakers, photographers and actors have often leveraged. In 1974, Georges Perec wrote An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris (Christian Bourgois, 1983), in which he spent three consecutive days observing people from the terrace of a café in Place Saint-Sulpice. This autumn, it was Philippe Jaenada who, in La Désinvolture est une Bien Belle Chose (Nonchalance is a Beautiful Thing, Mialet-Barrault Editeur), took his readers on an enthralling tour of geographical and historical bistros. Last year, director Fanny Molins brought her immersion into an Arles café to the big screen in Atlantic Bar, a film filled with tenderness, joy and sadness. On Instagram, comedian Amandine Lourdel entertains her 110,000 followers with her bar room stories.

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